


after

by WattStalf



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Fucked Up Relationship, Gen, M/M, Post-Anime, Serious Injuries, Unhealthy Relationships, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7808722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	after

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a commission for onelovelysin on tumblr.  
> All of the injuries mentioned here are based on their headcanons, posted here: http://onelovelysin.tumblr.com/post/148508519763/ive-looked-over-all-the-stuff-i-have-to-do-and  
> Hope you like it!  
> 

He is alone when he wakes up, and it takes him a moment to place where he is, who he is, what happened and what is happening. And as soon as he fully comes to, he can't stop the feeling of terror that washes over him completely, and then the pain sets in and he wants to move, he wants to get up and run somewhere- though he doesn't know where he could even go- but it hurts too much and he's hooked up to too many things to really get anywhere before someone figures out he's awake.

Izaya has vague memories of what landed him in this hospital, but he doesn't remember arriving at this hospital, or where this hospital even is. But he does remember enough of what happened before to remember that he finally took things too far, that for the first time in his life, he really pushed things beyond what he could handle, and now he is here, and he is terrified.

Not long after waking up, he is joined by a nurse who then has doctors come in to check on him, and he can't even speak to ask them what is going on. His panic grows and grows and grows until he is sedated, and then, as he feels his body relaxing, one of the doctors explains to him what happened.

He's been out for a month. Those words come as a great shock to him, but the doctor keeps talking and he knows that there's no way the man is making this up. He's been in a coma for a month now, and was initially in another hospital before being transferred here because of how critical his condition was. They don't go into detail about that part yet, but he's told that the details of his condition will be discussed soon enough.

Until then, he's informed that he just needs to rest and try to keep calm, that it's only natural for him to feel upset or panicked when waking up in an unfamiliar place after what he's been through, but that soon, things will be discussed in detail and that he will need to share his side of what happened. They remain with him for a few moments, checking on things, before deciding to give him some time to himself to process.

Even though Izaya is grateful for the time to clear his mind, he is a little bit worried about being left alone. He is still terrified, even knowing that it has been a month since the incident, that Shizuo is going to come after him.

~X~

He soon finds that he is unable to speak, and there are still cuts on his face that make it painful for him to move his lips too much. His doctor and his nurse seem to be able to read his lips, however, and they soon come to explain to him in detail what has happened to him. The injuries he sustained were very severe, including broken ribs, a broken hip, and a broke pelvis, and his arms were shattered and dislocated. His bones had to be repaired with titanium plates and screws.

In addition to that, one of his lungs had been punctured and his spleen had ruptured and had been removed. Worst of this was his liver; the laceration it had suffered had nearly killed him, he was told. They went on to tell him about the various things that had been done to keep alive during the month he was out, and it was revealed that the nurse had been hired to watch over him during most of the day, because his family was too busy to stay with him.

“It seems that you've suffered mental trauma, in addition to physical trauma, due to this attack,” the doctor says, as if it isn't obvious. At the mention of the word attack, Izaya wants to ask how much they know, and even though it's been a few more days and nothing has happened, he finds himself once again growing paranoid. Does Shizuo know where he is? Is he going to come finish the job?

The doctor mistakes the look on his face and says, “If you don't want to talk about it yet, you don't have to, but eventually, you're going to have to answer questions about what happened. We don't really have any details on anything...and if you feel you need to talk to someone else, a professional, about things...that can also be arranged.”

He mouths that he can talk about this any time; he doubts it's going to be easier to go over the details of the night in time and he doubts he will _ever_ be able to go over the details of that night. A large part of him knows that he's going to have to lie, not just because of his own fear, but because he knows that _he_ was the one who took things too far in the first place. He doesn't want what he did to come out, and he doesn't think there is really much that can be done for his situation, not at this point.

When he does get to talk to a detective, he is vague in his descriptions, using his trauma as an excuse for why there are so many blanks in the story, and even if the detective suspects that there is more to it, in the end, the attack is ruled as random assault. By the time it's over, Izaya's face is sore from trying to mouth everything he needed to say, and his nurse had to be present to read his lips when the detective couldn't. There's talk of an investigation, but without much to go on, it doesn't seem likely that they'll turn anything up, and he hopes that they don't.

~X~

When time passes, it passes in strange ways as Izaya constantly drifts in and out of sleep and goes through his daily routines. Some days are so slow, so agonizing, that it's hard to believe that only one day has passed, and others are gone before he even realizes it, but there aren't really any differences between these days. Now that he's begun his recovery in earnest, the nurse works with him as he works with his arms, as he starts to walk again, as he adjusts to the way his body has changed from his injuries.

He cannot deny that these days are growing increasingly more boring, but gone is the disappointment that comes with that and gone are the impulses to try and change that. It doesn't matter how empty his days are, how slow they sometimes pass, how pointless they all feel; he knows that _this_ is all because of his past actions, that acting _too much_ is why he is here, and that he isn't sure that he will ever try to influence his world so much again. It is better to be bored than to be afraid, he thinks, though for now, he is still balancing both of those feelings.

So far, he has denied any form of mental therapy, claiming that it's still difficult to communicate and that he wants to wait on that. Really, he doesn't think he'll be able to talk to a therapist, not without making everything up. Disregarding the fact that he has done enough illegal to warrant his patient confidentiality being broken, there is the fact that he does not want to hear someone else's thoughts on why he has done the things he's done. It is a matter of pride as well as a matter of fear now- he wants to be the only one to understand himself, but he is also afraid that there might be something that even he does not understand, that this therapist might uncover.

And so he spends his time in his own thoughts and does not involve anyone else. When his own thoughts feel safe enough to wander around inside, when he can finally start to think about the details of his situation and how he has really ended up where he is. Not just the hospital, not just with his injuries, but his life as a whole, and his fixation with the man he is so terrified of.

And it has always been a fixation, something that went a bit beyond his normal curiosities, because of just how directly he allowed himself to get involved. There's so much more to all that he is done than he has ever let on; there's so much more than he has ever even understood on his own, and even without some therapist there to pick his brain, his fixation begins to unfold before him and he can't deny the layers to the relationship he shared with Shizuo.

They have never been friends, and that much is at least still clear to him. No matter what, nothing will change the fact that they have never been anything but enemies, but...he pushed their rivalry so far, and for what? How can he cling to the idea that he simply despises Shizuo, when he's taken it and pushed it so goddamn _far_ , so far that he was willing, at least for a moment there, to die for their little game?

No, there is something more there, something beyond everything that Izaya has ever known to be true about the relationship between the two of them, and he can't make a bit of sense of it, even as he begins to learn what it means for him. Never has he considered Shizuo to be human, and so it has been easy to think he loathes him, but... _but_.

The fact will always remain that he cared too much, that he dwelt on things much more than even he normally would have, and that he put so much of himself into this one thing, and he has to know by now that the fact that he even cared at all says much more than he ever acknowledged. An idea of his true feelings on the subject begins to take form over the days he spends recovering, an idea that he dreads to uncover and an idea that he can no longer avoid.

He knows it speaks volumes as to how fucked up he really is, when he realizes just how much he came to care about Shizuo. After all, the things he's done and the things he's said, and the fact that he's never been able to think about him with anything but disdain, only for him to realize that there's something much deeper than hatred? That is fucked up, even for him, and he can't bring himself to be proud of this oddity.

He's never considered Shizuo to be human, and his hatred for him came easily as a result, but somewhere in the back of his mind he has always known that no amount of dehumanization could actually change the truth. Shizuo is unlike anyone else, but he has always been human, and he has always been fascinating. Izaya can hate him and fear him all he wants, but the fixation was based on more than that, and he cared. He always, always cared.

It's the closest thing to a reliable relationship he has ever had, he realizes.

~X~

Shizuo doesn't want to feel bad about what he did. He knows better than to think that Izaya didn't deserve it and he even knows well enough to know that he got off much too easily. It doesn't matter that they weren't evenly matched in the end, there, and it doesn't matter that he's never going to be evenly matched with much of anyone, because the only thing that matters is that Izaya had taken things too far and that it was time for this to end, no matter what it took.

He was going to kill him, once and for all; he had set out with every intention of doing so, and he knows that Izaya was trying to do the same to him. At the time, he had been prepared to do anything, because the other man had always pushed things beyond what he could bear, and it had to end somewhere. He had set out with the intention of killing Izaya and was certain he could do it without remorse, and he had been so close really doing it, but he hadn't.

And the man he has spent so long hating got away, and from what he's heard, is still alive but only barely, and the things he feels upon hearing that are not what he expects. There is regret, but somehow, it is not regret that he didn't finish the job, but rather regret that he began the job at all. He's no stranger to regret, especially where his outbursts are concerned, but this was more than an outburst and, by all means, the other man had it coming for a long time.

He feels guilty about pushing someone, about pushing _him_ , to the brink of death, and he doesn't know why. Before, he had felt so justified in doing this, and had wanted to do this for so long, and now...now he is having a very hard time thinking about the fact that he did something like that. He has always wanted Izaya out of his life, and now, after nearly accomplishing just that, he's conflicted, and it doesn't make any sense to him. It's hard not to get irritated at that, but he isn't even sure who he's irritated with.

Perhaps their relationship has always been more complex than he ever gave it credit for, and perhaps that's what was always so infuriating about it. All he knows is that now he feels somewhat hollow, beneath all the guilt, because he knows that it's over. Even if the other man survives, even if he didn't go through with killing him, that part of his life is over. They'll likely never see each other again and, even if they do, Izaya is never going to bother him again. He should be happy about that, and he isn't.

Shizuo isn't happy about any of this, and he wish he didn't have this damn guilt making everything complicated. Maybe if he didn't feel so damn guilty, he would be able to sort out the rest of his feelings. Hell, maybe then he would be happy, like he _should_ be, but somehow, he doubts that.

He doubts that he would be able to be happy with what he had done or happy that it's all over, or happy about any of this, and all he wants is to sort out his thoughts, but how can he do that when they're so goddamn _confusing_? What was really going on between the two of them, to leave him feeling like he's lost an important part of his life, one that should be missed? At what point had he become so used to Izaya that he had begun to accept him as necessary?

It's fucked up. He knows exactly how fucked up it is, and that doesn't make him feel any better, but it's starting to come together for him. He hates Izaya, has always hated him more than he's hated anyone and that hasn't changed but...the dependency there is something that cannot be explained by mere hate and the idea that he might feel empty knowing that they will never see each other again is enough to tell him that he cares a hell of a lot more than he ever thought he would, and a hell of a lot more than he should.

It is not only the end of something, but also the beginning of something. It's the beginning of this empty feeling and the beginning of always questioning what each feeling meant; it's the beginning of wondering when things changed and wondering if their strange connection was mutual, or if it was only something that he felt. He knows that it shouldn't matter to him what Izaya's feeling were, and that he should continue despising the man, rather than trying to see things from his point of view, but here he is, and he doubts he will ever make it past this stage.

He always wanted this, but he never wanted it, and he wishes, despite everything, that he could take it back and that things could back to how they always were. What this says about him, he isn't sure; Shizuo isn't really sure of much of anything at this point.

 


End file.
